Boston bombing suspects' family opens up to press

Apr. 19, 2013
|

Maret Tsarnaeva, an aunt of the two suspects in the Boston Marathon bombing, holds a reporter's smartphone that displays a scene from the bomb site, as she speaks to journalists in the lobby of her apartment building in Toronto on Friday. / Chris Young, AP

by Natalie DiBlasio, USA TODAY

by Natalie DiBlasio, USA TODAY

Usually families ask for privacy when their relatives are making headlines. But in the case of the Boston Marathon bombing suspects, aunts and uncles are hosting press conferences from their homes.

After news broke that one of his sons, Tamerlan, 26, had been killed in a shootout and the other, Dzhokhar, 19, was being intensely pursued, Anzor Tsarnaev spoke with ABC News by telephone from the Russian city of Makhachkala.

He said his son should give up peacefully, but warned the U.S. that if his son is killed, "all hell will break loose."

In a video interview with Reuters, Anzor said he was afraid for his son's life.

"Somebody clearly framed them," Anzor said. "I don't know who exactly framed them, but they did. They framed them. And they were so cowardly that they shot the boy dead."

Separately, to the Associated Press, Anzor said: "My son is a true angel. Dzhokhar is a second-year medical student in the U.S. He is such an intelligent boy. We expected him to come on holidays here."

From her home in Toronto, Maret Tsarnaeva, an aunt of the suspects, hosted her own press conference.

Maret said 26-year-old Tamerlan recently became a devout Muslim who prayed five times a day, and she doesn't believe the brothers could have been involved in Monday's attack.

"He has a wife in Boston and from a Christian family, so you can't tie it to religion," she said.

But she said Tamerlan "seemingly did not find himself yet in America, because it's not easy."

The interview aired nationwide on CNN before the footage was cut off.

"Clearly she is under a state of denial or not really aware of the full impact of what has happened here," said CNN's Anderson Cooper on the air.

Ruslan Tsarni, the uncle of the suspects, gave an impromptu press conference today outside his home in Montgomery Village, Md.

He called his nephews "losers" and said he was "ashamed" of the bombers on behalf of his family and of all Chechens.

He shouted: "If you are alive, turn yourself in. And ask for forgiveness from the victims, from the injured ... ask forgiveness from these people."